Eliezer

Eliezer

Eliezer

Eliezer

Eliezer

Eliezer

Eliezer is more than just a traditional protagonist; his
direct experience is the entire substance of Night. He
tells his story in a highly subjective, first-person, autobiographical
voice, and, as a result, we get an intimate, personal account of
the Holocaust through direct descriptive language. Whereas many
books about the Holocaust use a generalized historical or epic perspective
to paint a broad picture of the period, Eliezer’s account is limited
in scope but gives a personal perspective through which the reader
receives a harrowingly intimate description of life under the Nazis.

First and foremost, it is important to differentiate between
the author of Night, Elie Wiesel, and its narrator
and protagonist, Eliezer. That a distinction can be made does not
mean that Night is a work of fiction. Indeed, except
for minor details, what happens to Eliezer is exactly what happened
to Wiesel during the Holocaust. But Wiesel alters minor details
(for example, Wiesel wounded his knee in the concentration camps,
while Eliezer wounds his foot) in order to place some distance,
however small, between himself and his protagonist. It is extremely
painful for a survivor to remember and write about his or her Holocaust
experience; creating a narrator allows Wiesel to distance himself
somewhat from the trauma and suffering about which he writes.

Wiesel did not write Night merely to
document historical truths about physical events. The memoir is
concerned with the emotional truth about the Holocaust, as experienced
by individuals. As Eliezer struggles for survival, his most fundamental
beliefs—his faith in God, faith in his fellow human beings, and
sense of justice in the world—are called into question. He emerges
from his experience profoundly changed. The Holocaust shakes his
faith in God and the world around him, and he sees the depths of
cruelty and selfishness to which any human being—including himself—can
sink. Through Eliezer, Wiesel intimately conveys his horrible experiences
and his transformation as a prisoner during the Holocaust.